


Owe you one

by BadgerSigil



Series: After the Window [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 02:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3918781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadgerSigil/pseuds/BadgerSigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha feels guilty in the wake of events in Age of Ultron and sends Bruce a message to let him know she will be there for him if he needs her. As it turns out he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Owe you one

**Author's Note:**

> I just have a lot of feelings about these two I had to get out of my system.

Natasha hardly had time to think about Banner. It was drills with the Avengers, favours for SHIELD, favours for Clint. Between all that and attempting to have an ounce of downtime, she didn’t have room in her head for all that. No time to worry, no time to remember the look on his face when she had pushed him over the edge, no time to remember the feel of his hand on hers. And once she had left him a message on the satellite phone that she had stashed in the jet, on the off chance that he still had it. Once she had told him not that she was sorry, but that she owed him one and that she missed him what did she have to think about? Except, after weeks and months, once the thoughts of him had taken a steady, non-obtrusive rhythm, she got home after a trip with Clint and checked the phone. It had been over a week since she’d been back at headquarters, but even so she didn’t even consider that she might hear from Bruce. The voicemail icon blinked and she stared at it, blankly at first, and then she sucked in a breath and pressed play. She expected a slightly garbled message from Thor or maybe Maria after failing to get her on her phone while she’d been overseas. Instead, there was a breathy, tired, slightly nasal voice. Her stomach tightened.

"Nat... I'm uh, if it still stands could you... Can I call in that favour?" And as it was, she didn’t have anything better to do.

Now his phone was transmitting his location, it was a simple matter to follow it. Stark tech was good like that. As she drew closer and she realised she was going to end up in some remote Canadian valley several miles from the nearest town, she frowned. She parked the jet in the woods what were within a mile of the location and set out on foot. Layers of protective clothing didn't quite cancel out the biting wind. Wistfully she remembered the time when going to retrieve The Big Guy had meant humid cities teeming with locals.

The cabin came into sight but she was still dubious. This didn't seem like Bruce. Bruce liked distraction. The cabin was one storey and there was a track leading in the direction of the local town. One large, shapeless mound of snow must have been a jeep or something. She looked through her Stark Ind. thermal imaging binoculars and confirmed that he- or someone anyway- was alone. It could easily be a trap but then again, it was Bruce. Who was going to successfully mess with that. Natasha was still a little uneasy as she loped to the front door, but there was no such thing as an excess of caution. She raised her hand and knocked.

She waited and knocked again and waited and tried the handle. It swung open. Inside it was mostly dark, though the flickering embers of the fire were enough to pick up the shape on the couch. There was a half empty bottle of whiskey on the coffee table. She didn't want to make him jump but calling across the room might have that effect. Carefully, she sat on the edge of the sofa near his head. Much of him was hidden under a blanket but his legs were bare and tangled up in it. His top half was submerged in scratchy wool, only a shock of curly hair visible. She reached for it and ran a hand through the tangles, gently, then his forehead. He had a fever. She frowned. Could he get sick? Apparently so. After a while he stirred. He did jump and his breath grew a little distressed but then his eyes met her's and he relaxed.  
"Natasha..." He moved his head against her hand. The word was a hoarse whisper, as if he hadn't spoken for a while.

"I got your message." She said. "Left as soon as I heard it."  
"You came." He mumbled and shifted. An arm wrapped clumsily around her waist and she could feel his breath against her stomach. Her fingers trailed through his hair with gentle strokes and she looked around. It was oddly nice inside, from what she could tell in thenear darkness. Another off-the-books shield cabin? It didn't take her long to notice the pile of shredded clothes stuffed into the basket with the logs. She sighed and stood, gently untangling herself from him before she crossed the room.

Natasha could feel Bruce watching her as she stoked the fire.  
"Food?" She asked.  
"There’s some." He still sounded half asleep and groggy.  
"I brought some. It's in the jet."  
"You brought a jet?" He sounded amused. She smiled.  
"Only a little one. Tony doesn't know where I am, don't worry."  
"I wasn't worried." A feeling, not guilt, but some kind of dull sadness panged from somewhere below her ribs.  
"I don't expect you to trust me, Bruce." For a moment she couldn’t look at him.  
"I called you didn't I?" There was a smile in his voice. No resentment, no anger, not even a touch of bitterness. That hurt more than if he’d lost it right there in the cabin.  
"Doesn't look like you had much choice."  
"Mm." He sounded like he wanted to disagree but had no words. The silence stretched until the fire was a blaze. Some warmth built up in the air and she took off her coat and shook out her hair.

"You have a headache."  
"Am I that obvious?" As a matter of fact he was. His forehead was scrunched upwards and inwards like he was recovering from a code green and his lips were pressed together. She didn't say any of that though and just motioned to the half empty bottle of whiskey. His eyes focused on it and he groaned and collapsed backwards into the blanket with a hand gripping the top of his head as if he could hold the pounding in somehow.  
"That explains it." He said like he had forgotten all about drinking.  
"Stark is a bad influence on you."  
"Tony doesn't drink any more." Bruce said breathlessly as he heaved himself up into a hunched over sitting position. His socks touched the rug and the blanket slid off revealing (mercifully) that he was wearing underwear.  
"And you do?" Natasha hung her snowy coat on an obliging chair and tried not to notice how Bruce's hair stuck up more on one side. That it was longer than it had been when she had last seen him and how it cascaded across his forehead like it was trying to escape. Most of all, she tried not to notice the way he looked at her now from under his brow with a tight grimace like he was afraid of something. It took him a while to answer. His face shifted and tensed. Eventually he just shook his head and looked down at his knees.  
"No not really. I tried it once, just an experiment, there's a few bottles stashed in the kitchen from when I was last here."  
"Did it work?" She unlaced her boots and put them on the mat by the door. She couldn't see Bruce's boots or shoes anywhere nearby. The cabin was in less of a state of dishevelment than Bruce was. He laughed tiredly and sat back.  
"No. No it didn't work."

"Does this place have electricity?" She answered her own question before he could and moved across the room to the switch. "Can you handle not turning green if I switch this on?" She was immediately worried the joke was too much. Not because he might get mad, but because she wasn't sure what effect seeing him look any more pathetic would have on her.  
"No promises." He said with a half smile that she could just see in the flickering light. She grinned hit the switch and smiled at the resulting groan. Bruce yanked the blanket over his head and sat there looking like a blue woollen ghost with a pair of hairy legs sticking out the bottom. Natasha finally came and sat next to him. After a while he slowly pulled the blanket from his head and squinted comically in the light.  
"You look good." He said. He looked at her now like she _was ___the light. Not like it was blinding him either, like he was a moth to a flame and he couldn't look away. As much as the way that his face looked tugged on her heart strings, slack and adoring and helpless, she couldn't fail to notice that it was also sweaty and sleep stained and unshaven. There were big dark patches under his eyes and his lips were dry and pale. Natasha frowned.  
"Wish I could say the same about you." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and self consciously scratched at his stubbly jaw.  
"Not so good huh."  
"Not so good." She agreed. "And you've managed to get sick which honestly I didn't realise was a thing you could do."  
"No I wasn't sure either." He sniffed. But you know, it's cold out there." She frowned again. She quite firmly didn't want to think about the implications of _that_ statement. Though the shredded clothes and quite clearly unshredded cabin were clues enough.  
"Look you need a shower, a coffee and a shave and to put a shirt on and probably fill up that washing machine over there. And I'm not doing any of it for you 'cause I'm not your mom. Except maybe the coffee because I want one. And," she said, sticking her hand in his hair again (it really was irresistible), "I'll cut your hair if you hurry up. You up to it?" She put her hand on his forehead. Not too bad.  
“I’m fine.” He stood up and stretched.  
“Sure?” He nodded.  
“Could use that coffee though.”

_*_

"Are you going to talk about it?" Said Natasha. Suddenly he was all sheepish sideways glances again.  
"It's not what you think." Bruce said, finally looking up from the laundry basket. "The uh, the other guy, he's not so..." He trailed off, face crinkling in a hundred different ways while he searched for the words.  
"I saw you."  
"Mm?" He looked at her properly.  
"Sitting in the jet." He shook his head.  
"You saw the other guy."  
"No I saw you." He stared at her.  
"He's quieter now." Bruce said it quickly. And looked away.  
"He's more you." Bruce laughed a bit and shook his head. Looking down as he was, his hair practically fell into his eyes. Maybe cutting it wasn't the thing to do after all.  
"Not so much as you think. I already broke one abandoned building on a stop. Only one, though." He finished shoving in the laundry, closed the door and turned it on with one smooth movement. He didn't even change the settings. How long had he stayed here for in the past? He stood but it was like his body was too heavy for him. "It's like my balance is off." He said eventually.  
"Hey." She offered him a coffee cup. He took it and she leant up against the counter with her own mug. "It's ok to be off balance sometimes." She took a sip.  
"Me being off balance isn't really the same as someone else being off balance, Nat." She watched him, stood beside the washing machine all hunched up and small. Hair still wet from the shower. He hadn't shaved yet.  
"I don't know if I can bring myself to cut off the hair." She said. He laughed and ran a hand through it.  
"It'll be longer than yours soon, if I leave it."  
"Like that's a bad thing." She said and took another drink. He sat on a stool on the other side of the counter and took a sip from his own cup.  
"Good coffee."  
"If it can get Barton out of bed it had better be, or else he only pretends to be a lazy ass."  
"Sorry you had to see me like..." He trailed off.  
"Cheer up Banner, I feel like your bartender." He smiled a bit at that but couldn't hold onto it for long. He had something to say, Natasha could see it, so she just waited for him to get the words out.  
"You know this isn't my worst, right?" He said. His voice broke a bit. She put down her coffee and moved around the counter. Behind him, she threaded her arms under his and wrapped them around his chest. He was warm. Warmer than the fire somehow. She pressed herself against him and he took her hands in his and bowed his head.  
"You've come a long way since your worst, Bruce." Nat let her voice get husky. She was comfortable. Like the fuzzy feeling of lying safe in bed. Not that it was a feeling she was too familiar with.  
"Mm." He didn't sound convinced. Her heart and stomach lurched and she held him tighter. She loved that she could feel that for him. Even if it wasn't such a good feeling right now.  
"Nat." He sounded lost. "Why did you come?"  
"Because you were alone and you didn't have to be. I didn't want you to be." Bruce nodded and squeezed her hands. He released one of them to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand and then sniffed and shook his head.  
"Sorry." She could hear him smiling but his voice was still breathless so she didn't let him go.  
"What for?"  
"Being such a mess."  
"Oh please you're not even the first Avenger to melt down after a crisis."  
"But probably the most dangerous." She snorted.  
"Have you _met_ Tony?" She squeezed him. “Feel up to that hair cut?" 

_*_

"Since when can you cut hair?" She laughed.  
"Honestly? Clint taught me." He laughed then.  
"Really?"  
"He has a lot of coordination." The sun was coming up.  
"I learned basic stuff as a child but it was all trickery to change the look quickly, not an actual cut." She snipped carefully and a few more curls dropped to her feet and scattered over the towel wrapped around Bruce's shoulders.  
"How much are you taking off?"  
"As much as I can bare." She said.  
"Not much then, you seem quite taken with it."  
"I'm quite taken with _you_." She said with a little smirk around the comb she was holding in the corner of her mouth for a moment. "The hair is a bonus" she held some ends out straight and leant back for a better look.  
"Does Clint cut you hair?" He politely turned his head to ask her and she tutted and rotated it back into place with one hand.  
"Sometimes. It started when I went on long jobs with him. Sometimes our hair would get too long. S'how he taught me."  
"That's reassuring."  
"I'm not sure I'm as good at him as he is, he managed to fix it in about five minutes when my ends got burned a few weeks ago."  
"Burned?" He said, alarmed.  
"Yeah, I went out one night with Maria and Wanda, I don't recommend it unless you like spending time with one drunk woman who could vaporise the whole street and another who thinks it would be funny if she did." It took her a moment to realise who she was talking about but Bruce hadn't even tensed.  
"Sounds irresponsible." He said but he was smiling.  
"I don't know what I expected from Stark's head of security. As I said, the guy is a bad influence."  
"What was on fire?"  
"Other than my hair, Wanda's arm. She set herself on fire showing off, she must have spilled something on her sleeve." He chuckled. "It would have been funnier if she hadn't put her arm around me." 

_*_

By the time Nat had walked back from the Jet to the cabin, laden down with various supplies, it was almost midday and she was starving. All Bruce seemed to have was whiskey, cheese, eggs and an abundance of cured meat.  
"I don't even really like ham." He confided to her while she cut his hair. "But it keeps."  
There was also an entire cupboard packed with protein bars, from before he had taken to travelling the world, yet somehow disturbingly well within their use-by dates. "Proof that they don't count as real food." He had muttered darkly. "Stuff like that is why I'm a terrible hermit. It's enough to turn anyone green and angry." It turned out that Bruce had only confined himself to the cabin for three days. She presumed because he thought isolating himself was the answer, which he had got so terribly wrong that she was almost annoyed with him for it. Would have been, she supposed, if she had it in her. 

Natasha opened the door and spun around to close it again before much of the flurry managed to barge past her. Only then did the rather obvious smell of cooking hit her. She was smiling before she'd even turned around to see Bruce in the kitchen up to his elbows in pots and pans and plates. Having left him under orders to rest up, she had to roll her eyes.  
"Ham is great in omelettes" he told her, turning around to smile at her over his glasses. He was wearing a purple shirt now with the sleeves rolled up and he had shaved. He probably had dozens of the things. Just to be wearing a complimentary colour in case of green. Not that the shirts lasted long.  
"I should buy you an apron." She said and started unzipping her coat.  
"You want to make a habit of this?" Nat's breath caught a little.  
"Wouldn't mind." She said lightly. She heaved the rucksack full of cans onto the counter. "It's not every day a handsome man makes me omelettes."  
"You realise you're giving me every excuse to be a hermit for a few weeks at least." He gestured to the bag with the spatula and then turned back to fold the omelette.  
"Me? What about you, you're cooking for me."  
"Oh no looks like you'll just have to stay." He looked at her apprehensively, like he wasn't sure she'd find it funny. She laughed and pulled ketchup out of her bag.  
"I had my priorities straightened out, looks like."  
"Do you have spam in there?" He said, oddly hopeful.  
"Spam?" She frowned.  
"You're not reassessing our relationship are you?" He dished out an omelette.  
"Yes." She said and searched through drawers for cutlery. He pointed with the spatula with one hand while he poured his own eggs into the pan.  
"Thanks." 

They ate and laughed and Natasha filled Bruce in on everything he had missed.  
"See Vision," she said doing a blank face with wide eyes. "He's got all the memories of Tony's long suffering robot butler. So one minute he won't have a clue what's going on with all the humans getting all aww over a fuzzy animal or something, and then the moment anyone mentions sex he's totally clued in, not even awkward clued in he just knows exactly what they're talking about. No weird spaced out confused robot faces."  
"Sounds unsettling."  
"Robots talking about sex is always unsettling honestly."  
"Not something I've ever experienced personally."  
"And he can just be absolutely blindingly sarcastic sometimes too. Then there's the whole thing with Thor showing up whenever we least expect it, he hasn't gotten around to phoning ahead yet. And he doesn't use the front door, last week..." 

_*_

The plan was to clear up but when Bruce stood up from his seat, he all but swayed. She moved around the table and touched his arm.  
"You're tired."  
"Mm."  
"You're sick."  
"I just remembered that." She put her hand on his face.  
"You're shivering." She half dragged him to the couch. He protested a little bit, said something vague about the dishes. She folded onto the sofa next to him. Bruce was giving her that look again, like he couldn't stop staring. Suddenly he was reaching for her and she was there and she could feel his breath. She kissed him. Slow and hesitant, but then fiercely when he kissed her back. Her arms and his tangled. When they broke apart, she noticed that the fire was dying down. Natasha pulled the blanket over them and shifted against his chest. She smiled.  
“We should make a habit of this too.” He said, voice quiet and rumbly.  
“Come home and we can.”  
“Natasha…”  
“You called me for a reason. You want to come back.” Silence. He stroked her back, probably to reassure her that she wasn’t making him feel awkward. He was lying of course, he was always awkward.  
“Can you be sure that I should?” She looked at him pointedly and raised an eyebrow.  
“I can be sure staying out here with whiskey and viruses is something you shouldn’t do. And I can be sure I want you to come with me.”  
“I don’t know if I can.”  
“That’s exactly why you need to do it. You need your confidence back and we need you back.” He couldn’t say anything to that so Nat started talking again. She told him all about Clint’s obsession with coffee machines, she told him all about the disastrous passenger plane journey she’d had a few weeks ago, she spoke about the one time Clint had tried to cook for her before he got married and more recent time he had actually succeeded. Mostly, she spoke about nothing in particular, until Bruce’s responses faded and his eyes closed. His breathing slowed and she smiled and watched him sleep for a while, until her own eyes grew too heavy and she let herself fall asleep with him in her arms. 


End file.
